Christian

Christian was born on Christmas Day, hence the name. I don't know all of his story. I do know parts of it. I met Christian the previous summer drinking in Number 20 with Bill. They both used to live down in Church Beach on Boats. There were both skint and were trying to make money out of scrapping boats by burning the metal out of them. No word of a lie they spent a whole week burning and old wooden boat on Muddy Beach. They set a fire on the beach and stuck the bow into and ever fe hours had burned enough wood to drag the boat a little further into the fire. They had managed to float the boat from Gweek. I'd gone down there to hang out one night and Christian had eluded to his alien stories. He wouldn't tell me anything though. He had predicted the end of the world in 2012 accompanied by global floods. Which there were.

The Day that Christian died Bill had been working on his own boat, he's managed to buy the radio he had needed from the scrap money he and Christian had pulled together. He literally just connected it when he heard a mayday call on the radio that was coming from over on the Helford. Christian had been moored up there for a few days at his favourite spot just off Durgan. Bill had stayed over there with him at the weekend, it was one of those glorious summers days that never seemed to end. I forget the exact details however some how Bill just knew it was Christian got in his car and headed over there. To find a search party and Amber Christians new girlfriend on the beach. 

Nobody really knows what happened. Amber had come back to the boat after a day at work. She was trying to get hold of him on the phone and was standing on the beach calling him. She had noticed the boats dinghy drifting down river, when a dog walker emerged from the coastal path saying he had seen someone in the water and had lost sight of him and he had no phone signal. Some how they had managed to relay this message to one othe boats and they had called in the mayday which Bill heard. 

They sat on the beach all night waiting. 

They did eventually find the body about four days later. 

As always in communities there were offerings of information, that the current had been bad. There was speculation too. He might have lost the dinghy and dived in hoping to get hold of it. He had been beaten up by his brother badly a few weeks before. Maybe his fractured rib had broken. In the end it was confirmed he died of drowning. 

It wouldn't be fair to write much more about the aftermath of his death. The last time I saw him was on the main street in Penryn. Somewhere near the Temperance Hall, we spoke about the community cafe and I can't remember the last of it now, we had said something slightly amusing. How much is lost. 

Christian's Dad summed it up best. Christian always said that "2012 will be the end of the world and for him it was."